Monday, August 29, 2011

Last weekend I had the opportunity to travel out to the Corona Hackathon in San Francisco with my partner Tim. Who knew what would happen? I've never been to California before but it was something that had to be done - it was calling us there!

A quick review of the crazy weekend...

Friday - Travel
Hopped on a plane from Omaha, NE to San Francisco so we got up at 5:00 AM CST and get a 3 hour delay in Vegas so we don't get into SF until about 3 o'clock local time. Talked to Carlos before hand and he opened up the Ansca office to us so we stopped in for a visit...

Completely in awe of the hospitality and welcoming to two schmucks like us. My point is this, Carlos and Walter want US to succeed, the developers. In fact after talking to them I would say they are more concerned with others succeeding than themselves. Why else would they take time to spend with us? Two guys from Nebraska who by rights haven'd done jack, YET! I'll treasure the conversations and stories shared as they were candid and from the heart. I can't put a price on the value of Friday to me. We met some of the Ansca team in the office who were just as nice and it was just great to see people working hard for something they believe in.

Saturday - Hackathon
Up early and head to the event at the pariSoma Innovation Loft. This facility was awesome, it had exactly the right vibe and the sponsors of inMobi and Papaya were terrific. They shared some great tips and suggestions on monetization opportunities. Since we had a day of travel we basically had the idea of recreating the classic Mattel football game. This was hilarious as anyone under 30 had no clue was this ancient device could be...we had an actual working on on the trip with us.

We started with a good plan, we limited our time modeling and art so we get into the coding aspect, not sure if Tim got possessed or some kind of moment of clarity washed over him but at one point he grabbed the keyboard and Lua flowed through. For about 12 minutes he was just a vessel, it was beautiful. We were happy to get completed what we could in the time allowed, we actually submitted about an hour early, but we were fried form the travel so we threw in the towel and grabbed some much deserved beer!

Here's a short video on where we left off...we plan on finishing this game over the next week and making it turn based to play with friends. There's another out there, but not on Android and developed in 8 hours with Corona SDk and not turn based so why not?

Sunday - Travel
Got up at 6:00 am to make a run to the Golden Gate and to Muir woods and got in a two mile hike. Would have been especially nice to have actually seen the bridge, we drove over it but it was so foggy you couldn't see it, not even the railings! No alcatraz, no bay, no nothing - just fog! Guess we gotta come back now! Back to the airport by noon and plane ride home at 9pm.

Exhausted.

So glad to have participated in this event and so thankful to have met so many wonderfully talented and creative people - all in one room! I really liked the end when everyone was crowding around to see everyone's creations and all the encouragement and praise towards one another was just great. Congratulations to the winners, after all "This ain't soccer" - Walter LOL